


Thanks, Dad

by WaldosAkimbo



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Jacob is a good dad, M/M, Post-Movie: Pacific Rim: Uprising (2018), hospital room, possessed Newt - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 17:21:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,904
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18103004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WaldosAkimbo/pseuds/WaldosAkimbo
Summary: Jacob comes to visit Newt in the hospital while he is recovering from the Precursors. It's early yet, so they still have to contend with aliens being big ol' bastards. Thanks, aliens!





	Thanks, Dad

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sarah1281](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarah1281/gifts).



> For Sarah and their prompt: Jacob visiting Newt when he's still recovering from the Precursors. Hope you enjoy!

The chair is hard-backed, hardly any cushion, but perhaps a little kinder than cement walls and metal grated floors. Jacob slides one leg over the other, then back down, then replaces it again. His knee, of course, is bouncing. He picks at his fingernails, bitten down nearly to the bed, and worries on a hangnail as another guard walks by.

Nobody is giving him a glance and it has him worried.

He double checks the heavy laminated badge on his hip. The elastic string is a little frayed. Reuse, recycle, re…something. That’s the motto of humanity at this point. Repurpose? Either way, rations are still in effect as the effort to fix what has been broken picks back up again. All because….

Well.

It wasn’t his fault. Jacob decides to believe this, after that long talk with the fellow who had been his son’s pen pal all those years ago. Who telephoned him and helped him get the clearance to visit the PPDC facility where they are keeping him, and who had two nice but very tired-looking cadets with smudged cheeks and frazzled hair— _mein Gott, they look just like Newt—_ sat him down and told him to wait.

“Dr. Gei…sorry.” Jacob looks up just as a thin fellow with soft brown hair and the sort of eyes his son would absolutely get lost in steps towards the rows of seats. He's alone, but looks like he's more comfortable that way anyways. “Old habits.” He sounds British. He looks like he’s forty going on a healthy seventy-five and he white-knuckles a cane as he slips a fist into the pocket of a pair of dark gray trousers both two-sizes too big and one size too short. Thin ankles. Socks. Uneven in both color and height, which means a mismatched pair. Jacob always thought he had a painter’s head for details but the hands of a pianist by nature. “Mr. Geiszler, I—”

“Jacob.” He offers the seat next to him. “Please. Only the bank likes to call me Mister.”

The man opens his thin mouth and there’s something bright lighting up behind his eyes. A memory of sorts.

“Right,” he finally says and removes his hand from his pocket, extending it to Jacob. “I’m Dr. Gottlieb. Er. Or—”

“You’re Hermann.” Jacob says it like it has slowly dawned on him and he nearly smacks his forehead. He should have recognized those cheekbones. “My son, he kept pictures of you! Up on his wall! Right next to the Velvet Gun Poster.”

It was a place of pride in young Newt’s bedroom wall, to be certain. Above his bed, within reach that, on at least one occasion, Illia and Jacob had found him laying on his bedding, his doc martens on the pillows, his head down by the foot, and one hand touching the bottom of the print-out picture he had taken from an article online.

“Yes,” Hermann says, and he blushes, just a little, glancing at the floor. “Well. I, uh, I had his band poster.”

“Oh? Limited edition.” Jacob says this proudly, even if he is not blind to the fact that Newt’s bands were always…an acquired taste. With…one might say…virulent life spans.

“I’m sure he printed it out himself.”

“Mandala Junkyard?”

“The Lanyard one,” Hermann says and Jacob nods. “He hand-painted—”

“—the smiley faces, yes,” Jacob says and laughs. He made a check-mark across his own mouth. “Over each of their heads. Like, uh, oh…what’s the word? Clown _Gesichtsfarbe_.”

Hermann relaxes, his smile easy and kind. “Face paint. Yes.” Jacob hums and Hermann taps his hand to his chest, playing with the little PPDC credentials he has pinned to his lapel. “He should have used a different color. More, ah, more like an open gash than the lipstick look.”

“I think he was going for Bowie.”

The both nod, nearly in unison, chuckling to themselves for different but tangential reasons. Hermann, again, puts his hand in his pocket and fiddles with something, a slip of paper or a good luck charm, before he motions for the seat. Jacob does the same.

“Please,” he says and Hermann, true to his etiquette lessons, bows his head just a little and says, “Thank you,” as he takes the edge of the chair, settling into it slowly.

Hermann tucks one ankle behind the other, his cane stabbed in front of his knee, and is clearly perching himself so he does not hurt either a hip or a knee or the entire leg all together. He looks remarkably stately, until he sighs and drops his forehead to his knuckles. The moment of exhaustion passes as quickly as it came, before Jacob can even lay a warm hand on his shoulder. The man looks like he could do with a hug. Jacob—and Illia, if he were here, and their Little Newt, if he were available, let’s be honest—would absolutely offer a hug without question. The world needs hugs.

Hermann. Hermann needs a hug.

Hermann forces a weary smile as he looks up again. They both know he’s Bavarian— _incomprehensible, those southern bastards_ , Jacob thinks fondly—but he has adopted that British “stiff-upper-lip” same as he did the accent, hasn’t he? His watch beeps and he turns the face to check the time or, more accurately, stop the alarm.

“Ah, there we are,” he mutters to himself. “He should be awake soon. Mr. Geiszler—”

“Jacob.”

“Right. Right.” Hermann shakes his head. He says something about lack of sleep under his breath and straightens up. “Apologies. Uh, I know this is going to be…difficult.”

“You said such on the phone,” Jacob says and he puts a hand on Hermann’s closest arm. Hermann stares at it, not flinching, not stiffening, but still watching it like a viper has wrapped around him. Jacob wonders if he is the sort that doesn’t like to be touched, which is a shame if he’s getting on with Newt, and he quickly removes his hand again before Hermann’s poor eyes bulge out.

Hermann, and it may be wishful thinking, looks like he leans a little towards Jacob. Just a little. Seeking out that warmth again.

“Ah. Well.” Hermann coughs into his hand, perhaps a distraction. “It is easier to say one thing and see another. It will be…jarring. He’s been having longer stretches of lucidity and we are trying. Jacob, we are trying so hard to get your son back.”

Hermann turns to face him almost completely. He looks so earnest that Jacob has to fight the urge to cup his cheek and give it a comforting, fatherly pat. There was a long stretch of time that he was not so good at that, and that he should have done more by his own son. He had a broken heart and broken marriages around him. He was only human, but he still beat himself up about it.

“I lost him for years, Hermann. I will be happy enough just to see him.”

“We’re trying to get him to gain weight,” Hermann says quickly, almost as an afterthought or a confession he is remise to admit.

“Should I…?” Jacob pantomimes flying a spoon to a toddler’s mouth and laughs gently, but Hermann does not find it as humorous. “I know you are trying, Hermann. I understand that this is…I just want to see my Newt again. He pulled back from me and Illia for almost five years. You can’t imagine—”

“I can,” Hermann says. He nearly touches his forehead to the top of his hands again. He does look exceptionally exhausted. Most of the people around here do. They all need naps and big bowls of soup and warm blankets. Jacob can only care physically for one, maybe two, if Hermann will let him in, but his heart still goes out to them.

Another man in a uniform is coming down the hall and Jacob assumes he will walk by, same as the rest. He keeps his attention on Hermann, who is starting to sit up straighter.

“Uh, no physical contact, you will be permitted half an hour under surveillance and—”

“Surveillance?” Jacob asks.

“And don’t let them—”

“Gottlieb,” the officer says. He has a warm smile. He looks far too young to be high ranking, but the slightly rumpled uniform has a few impressive badges tacked to it. He has a sharp line cut into his black hair, and the swagger of man who tries hard to look like life is easy. All of them know it is not. The officer claps a firm hand on Hermann’s shoulder, shaking him with his grip, before he slides his attention to Jacob. “And Mr. Geiszler?”

“Jacob,” Hermann and Jacob say in unison, Hermann almost swallowing the word against his shoulder. Jacob is still surprised and delighted to hear it.

“Of course. Listen.” He lets go of Hermann and extends his hand. “Sorry, Jake. Pentecost. Jake’s fine, too.”

They shake hands. Hermann is not looking at anyone anymore, just adjusting himself on the seat to sit tall and firm without crowding in on them. His thin mouth is shut and Jacob wonders if he will speak freely to Jacob again.

“Has he given you the rundown?”

“We were just getting to the surveillance part,” says Jacob, patting Jake’s arm.

“Right. Right. We’ve three cameras set up on the bed and one on the exit. Its precautions is all.”

“And an unnecessary extreme,” Hermann grumbles. Jake purses full lips before he turns to Hermann. “Now, I know what you’re going to say.”

“No, you _presume_ , what I’m gonna say, but you don’t—”

“If we could just let him—”

“What does the EEG say?”

Hermann wrinkles his nose and begins to shake his head. “No. No. Don’t start…that’s not fair.”

“What does it say?” Jake asks again, putting both hands on Hermann’s shoulder. It’s a bit condescending, and Jacob can feel the urge to smack Jake’s hands away rolling off Hermann in great, obvious plumes of rage. “It says he’s—”

“—still infected, yes, fine.”

“Still infected?” They turn to look at Jacob. “ _Was heißt das?_ Infected.”

“We are still trying, Jacob.”

“There’s still Precursor influence rattling in his noggin,” Jake explains in a manner that says nonchalance, yes, but it all seems a façade. He wants to say more. Jake wants to ask something, but he does not, perhaps because Jacob is the father and perhaps because Hermann looks like he’s about to take that sturdy cane of his and beat the poor young bastard to the floor. “Less influence,” Jake amends, as though that will make everyone happy. “But still.”

“I want to see him.” Jacob knows that this Pentecost boy is the one who has authority here, but he speaks to Hermann, because Hermann is the one who is important. To Newt. To Newt’s happiness and health and hope. Jacob knows this, and he focuses his attention. “Please.”

The room is alive with mechanical sounds. There is the beeping from at least three of the machines, the wispy, robotic breath from something pumping behind the bed, the click and whir from the heavily armed door, hermetically sealing the room when it is closes. Monitors take up station overhead, their big black screens keeping watch.

“He has responded better to the blue lights,” Hermann says, as though to apologize for the low ambient lighting that surrounds them. “We’ve reason to believe—”

“…it’s less hospitable, right?” The voice is weak, scratchy, clawing up from the dark, and is followed by a short, forced laugh. “To Them, huh? They really like…who’s this?”

Jacob has found his feet stuck to the floor and his tongue too big as he stares. This man is thin, with bruised eyes and a crack in his lip that, as he talks, begins to bleed again. He absently tongues it as he sits up. They’ve given him sleeves down to his forearms, bunched at the join of his elbows to accommodate medical tape and IV lines. His hair is mussed. His tattoos are visible only across his clavicles and through the mostly opaque medical tape. His glasses….

Well, no, his eyes….

 _Maybe it is the lights_ , Jacob thinks, looking up at the blue block above them. Maybe it obscures Jacob, too. But it makes his eyes look like they are glowing. Jacob finds himself blinking too many times to make up for Newt’s relentless stare.

“You don’t recognize him?” Jake asks, disrupting the quiet contemplation. Newt slides his strange eyes onto the young officer. His pupils seem to shrink and he ever so slightly tightens his fists. The monitors keep their steady _beep-beep, beep-beep_ above him.

“Well come here and let me look, I guess,” Newt says, putting on a smile. He wears it well, his beautiful boy, but it doesn’t fold up his entire face with warmth and joy and Jacob knows his son is lying to get something.

“You said I could have half an hour,” Jacob says quietly, turning to Hermann.

“Yeah. Under surveillance,” Jake repeats from earlier. “We’re not leaving you alone.”

“I trust Hermann.”

Jake takes a deep breath and puts his hands on his hips, cracking a short, forced laugh. “Okay,” he says evenly, “well. There’s some ‘round here who _don’t_ trust Gottlieb. So….”

“Uh, what’s going on?”

They turn again towards Newt. He’s sitting up more, leaning forward enough that Jacob finally notices the restraints around his hips. There are more bands around his legs that are hidden by a thin hospital blanket. Two around his wrists, like the old leather bracelets that he loved so. Jacob scowls at the sight, looking back at Jake again.

“He’s tied down,” he says.

“Yeah?” Jake shakes his head, like he doesn’t understand. “Look, you—”

“There’s three cameras and you can watch through the room,” Hermann whispers quickly. “Jake, please. He’s his father.”

“Who’s father?”

Newt is leaning as far as he can, his arms stuck at his side. He tilts left and right, like he’s trying to see over a crowd. The poor boy has always been shorter than everyone. He used to twist himself into every nook and cranny afforded him when he wanted to get to the front at a concert or through the school crowds when they went to the museums.

“Hey, Jake? Uh, fuck you, I’m a person, okay? Can you at least _talk_ to me?”

Jacob laughs despite himself. He shakes his head and almost says something about his language, but Newt’s gone rigid again and it cuts Jacob off at the quick.

“Dad?”

Jake grabs Jacob’s arm before he goes over to him. He wants to shove this uppity officer off. He’d even shove Hermann at this point if it meant he could get to his son, but Jake just leans in and whispers, “No physical contact. Half an hour. Gottlieb’s staying in here with you and I’ll be _right_ outside. Got it?”

“Yes, yes.” He yanks his hand loose and goes forward, finally unimpeded.

There is a chair to Newt’s left, currently tucked away, with a table next to it stacked with books that are out of reach from the bed. Jacob eyes them quickly. They are a mishmash of well-worn books, from William Gibson’s _Neuromancer_ to Manjir Samanta-Laughton’s _Punk Science._ A thin red book currently rests on top, with blocky letters that read _The Philosophy of Blue: Internal Depths._ He smiles at the skeletal imprint of one of the kaiju skulls engraved in the hardback cover. If he asks, he wonders if Newt will identify it for him.

“Heeeey, Pops!” Newt sits up, adjusting the pillows behind him as best he can, given his many restraints. He just ends up rocking back and forth until the pillows bunch up. Hermann is already at his right, reaches behind Newt without question or hesitation, and yanks the pillows up like he likes. “Oh. Thank you.”

“No touching, Dr. Gottlieb.” Jacob jerks back and looks up at the voice that came through the intercom. He does not recognize who it belongs to.

Both Newt and Hermann just sigh, sharing a glance, a moment. Something innocent lights up Newt’s face before he drops back against the pillows again and Hermann lifts his hands back up as he steps away, taking post near the wall.

“You keep getting in trouble and they won’t let you in here to see me anymore,” Newt says in a singsong voice, more a threat than a tease.

“I won’t let that happen, Newton,” Hermann answers. He tilts his chin up, rising to the challenge of perhaps a little friendly banter. “Who would read to you?”

Something clicks in the back of Newt’s throat, teeth chattering together. It sounds disturbing and Jacob leans forward in the chair.

“Newt?” He wants to take his hand so badly, but he balls his fist on his thigh, cognizant of the people who are watching them. Who could take this all away. He’s not ready to have this taken away again. He’s not ready to leave his son in this strange blue room.

Newt looks over as Jacob gets closer, the both of them mirroring a curious look. Drawn in their DNA, it seems.

“Dad,” Newt says, softening, letting out a sigh. He smiles, and he looks so tired. So weak. He needs a warm meal. He needs his “Dinodile,” the mismatched stuffed animal Jacob and Illia had patched together more times than they could count after muddy, messy, sometimes bloody adventures out in the woods behind the house. “Dad,” he says again and laughs as he closes his eyes. “Or…right, no, you’re Jacob, right?”

“I’m…what do you mean?” Jacob inches closer, the chair scooting seamlessly across the smooth floor. “I am. Newt. Son, look at me.”

“Son, right. Right,” Newt says, arching his back and flopping back down. He laughs. He laughs and he laughs and it should be joyous to hear his son’s laughter again. So long. But it doesn’t ring true. Same as the smile he painted on for Jake, this just is put out for somebody else’s sake. Not Newt’s. Certainly not Jacob’s.  “Right, ‘cause Jacob is Dad.”

Hermann clears his throat to draw Jacob’s attention. He shakes his head once, folding his hands neatly atop his cane. Jacob has a silly thought, a distraction, that he should have given the chair to Hermann, but he’s pulled back again as Newt tugs just a little at the restraints on his wrists, a reaction and not an intention.  

“But, hey, Illia raised him. Me. Us. Me,” Newt says, bouncing between the identifier until he’s stuck with _me_ and smiles. The accusation, even if it’s coming from somewhere else, somewhere dark and alien…it stings. Jacob draws a breath to defend or to ask for clarification, but Newt presses forward. “Yeah. Yeah, so. Hey, no harm, no foul if I get that confused, right? Because, where were you again, huh? Out tuning your pianos?”

“Oh. Newt…. Newt, _liebe_ , we tried. Remember, you used to like to come with me when we went to the Philharmonie. You liked the shape of the stage, didn’t you?”

 Jacob tries not to sound hurt. He was warned, of course, that this would be difficult. That there were residual…well, issues. His fist shakes as he starts to bounce his leg, a nervous tick, perhaps. Or because he is thrumming with the need to hug his son and nobody will let him. If it would be worth the risk? Newt is always worth the risk. But it’s been so long since he’s seen him, or heard his voice, and he needs to be here. It does not matter what these “Precursors” or what-have-you are saying through his son. He’s in there. He knows. He can—

“Illia brought me to my first day of school,” Newt reminds him.

“Well, I—”

“Illia helped me rebuild that radio.”

“Yes,” Jacob says, trying to smile through the accusations. It’s not his fault. It’s not Newt’s fault to remember these instances. He’s just latching onto what he can from his childhood. He’s sick. He’s hurt. Jacob’s leg bounces a little more, all the same. “I was worried you would burn yourself with the soldering tool, but—”

“How many birthdays did we miss, huh? You and I? I mean, I know you hated that, right, because didn’t she leave on our birthday?”

“Newt….”

“Couldn’t take it. I guess I get it. This snot nosed little punk pops up, right, totally unannounced. Unplanned. She had to miss a season just to give birth, which, what a drag.”

“You were not a ‘drag.’ You were our little—”

“Don’t say ‘miracle,’ Dad, I’ll seriously puke.”

“I wouldn’t.” Jacob closes his eyes again, takes a deep breath, and smiles. He has to. “I’d say ‘firecracker.’ Or….” Jacob laughs, wiping under his eye quickly. “ _Mein kleiner Salamander._ ”

“How many other opera singers did you fuck to get over that, Dad, huh?” Jacob’s face falls instantly. “I mean, real fucking professional. Did you get a kick out of ruining the marriages or was it really just the music? Monika wasn’t, like—”

“Enough!”

The smile curls too high at the corners and then settles down to something more natural, more tired. Newt closes his eyes, too.

“Gotcha,” he whispers, and his voice is starting to deflate, the fire dying in him as he grows paler by the moment.

“What’s happening?”

There are electronic alarms and little golden lights lighting up on the machines. Hermann moves, taking Newt’s small calloused hand as Jacob takes the other.

“Newt?” Hermann pinches one of his fingers, the ring one, incidentally, and shakes it just a little. Someone is already telling them to step back through the speakers, but they are a muffled, distant concern. “Newt, come on, you bastard.” He practically spits the command, but Jacob can feel the affection slicing through his words, the undercurrent of fear and apprehension. Of love. “One more time, dear boy.”

The world needs hugs.

Jacob looks up at Hermann, who so earnestly holds onto this tiny lifeline with his son. Who rubs his finger and glowers because his heart is breaking at the sight of Newt stretched out, frail, and shattered. Neither man cries, though maybe they should. There’s healing in tears. Jacob always said, when he came home to Newt’s scraped knee and ruddy red face, sat up on the counter while Illia bandaged. They used to kiss his cheeks until he giggled, his first pair of frames sliding down his nose, his pockets full of interesting rocks or insects or tadpoles. They hugged him.

They hug him.

Yes, behind them, the door starts to hiss and click and crack as whatever team was monitoring outside finally breaks in to disturb them and their precarious moment. But Jacob takes Hermann’s hand and pulls, just a little, as they curl up on Newt. His ear finds Newt’s chest, listening to the fluttery sound of his heartbeat. Oh, it is a canary in a cage. So light. So frantic.

Hermann is more reserved, for a moment. He slides his hand back, presumably to give more space. But Jacob keeps holding him and smiles as the weight of arm and chest combine with his own.

“We told you two,” one of the officers says. Different face than that Jake Pentecost fellow. Colder eyes, too. “Proximity has to be—”

Something squirms by his side. Jacob opens his eyes to see Newt, barely awake, his hand flopping up and down with a little bounce. Jacob takes it, of course, and squeezes his fingers.

“Thanks, Dad,” Newt whispers. “…Sorry.”

Newt’s bruised face goes a bit blurry, for a moment, until Jacob blinks away the tears. He cups Newt’s face and barely gets to kiss his forehead as one of the guards snakes his arms and pulls him away. Hermann’s already shouting something, and the words bubble up inside Jacob as well, of course, but he looks at Newt, who nods and wiggles his fingers in a little wave.

“Next time,” Jacob says, struggling not to be dragged out of the room. Maybe he imagines the nod, but the smile is pure and clean on his son’s face, and that is good enough.

\---

His badge is revoked. Worse yet, Hermann’s badge is revoked, but that is more a temporary threat while _Very Important People_ have a conversation about visitations and interrogations and the likes. They can hold tribunals and conferences until they’re blue. Jacob still feels like there is something to cheer for, and he grins to himself as one Officer Lambert does his level best to chew them out.

After the words have faded and he walks away, Jacob leans back in the hard-backed chair. He laughs, close-lipped, reserved. But he laughs, and it shakes his shoulders, until it travels down his spine and out through the soles of his feet. Hermann is still beside him and he brushes aside a row of sweat-curled hair across his forehead. He looks a bit beaten by the reprimand, but nothing he can’t overcome.

“I do apologize for…?” Hermann eyes him, almost reaching out to touch Jacob’s trembling shoulder. “I’m sorry. Are you alright?”

Words aren’t good enough. Jacob turns and wraps his arms around Hermann, hugging him tightly around his middle, trapping one of his arms. He laughs harder against the musty tweed of his blazer. He laughs until he’s crying, until it hurts, until Hermann’s posture relaxes enough to mold slightly against Jacob’s persistent embrace.

“I’m sorry,” Jacob says as he sits back, wiping his face, taking time to breathe again.

“It’s alright, I think.” Hermann has quickly dashed a finger under his eyes as well, poor man. Jacob pretends not to see it, at least this time. Hermann proves himself to be the sort that needs that kind of dignity. Jacob marvels at how his Little Newt had put up with it all those years, but it’s endearing, all the same. “It might be a while before we get another chance to get you in there to see him. They aren’t too happy.”

“Ah. Well…fuck ‘em.” Jacob pats Hermann’s knee, enjoying the humor that ignites his face. “I can be persistent, you know.”

“Something your son obviously inherited.”

They smile. Oh, it’s just something to say, surely, but Jacob senses Hermann’s attempt to be cordial, to be kind, to give some sense of hope to the situation. They lean closer. Hermann is more equipped for the second embrace, short and half-formed as one arm slings around his shoulder this time. It will get even easier, with time. Jacob is certain of that.

“Is he really going to take your badge for the day?” Jacob says as they stand, allowing Hermann to lead him towards the entrance again as he tugs out his phone, requesting an Uber Car to take him back to the hotel where he can tell Illia all about their Little Newt and plans on what to do next time they get to see him—get Illia a badge, for starters. Maybe he’ll be better equipped not try and hug him while all those bastards are watching through the two-way mirrors. Unlikely. Illia is very affectionate.

“Even if he does, I’ll get Reyes to print me another,” Hermann says and sighs. “Lord, I don’t want to imagine the number of favors I’ll need to cash in.”

Jacob claps Hermann’s back. “I appreciate it. All the same.”

“I’m sure Newt does too.”

The two of them hum.

The door opens up to a red sky, the sun quickly slinking past the busy skyline and towards the horizon. It will be dark by the time he gets to the hotel. This should be fine. Nothing to complain about. He does not need the sun and the sky so much as others might, like his brother. Like his son. But he sighs and stretches his back, double checking his phone.

“My ride is here,” he says, tilting the screen so Hermann can see. He nods, glancing down at it. “Thank you again. I can call you tomorrow?”

“Day or night, Mr. Geiszler.” Hermann catches himself, waving a hand briefly in front of his chest. “Jacob. Sorry.”

Jacob grips both of Hermann’s elbows. “Hermann,” he says, pats him twice, and then cups his cheeks again, same as he did to Newt. Newt and Jacob are nearly identical in height and Hermann must have had years of practice, leaning down to be close enough, that it is not even difficult for Jacob to kiss Hermann’s forehead like he did to Newt’s, his parting remark. Hermann blushes at the too-familiar contact, of course, but that man is so clearly in love with his son. If they are truly going to fight this—and they will, and they will _win_ —then Jacob decides he’s pulling him into the family already. So when Newt is out, returned to them fully, happy and healthy, well…they’ll be ready. That’s all. They will be ready.

“Ah. Well.”

“Tomorrow,” Jacob says, heading towards a civilian car waiting by the curb. He slides into the passenger seat and settles, reading off the address to the hotel he has saved in his phone. He sits back and hugs his arms across his chest, watching the building scroll away in the mirror. Not for the last time, surely. Oh, no. This is just the start.


End file.
